Be careful what you ask for, Hollywood.
The entertainment industry rallied to elect Joe Biden to the highest office in the land in 2020.
We don’t know how much that support factored into the results, but it’s clear Biden became the country’s 46th president.
And look what happened next.
Crime swelled. So did inflation rates and gasoline prices. The economy is teetering toward a recession if not already in one. We’re far worse off than we were two-plus years ago.
Yet Hollywood’s brightest often shrug off cultural woes with ease, captured perfectly by the tone-deaf “Imagine” sing-a-long recorded by Gal Gadot and chums at the start of the 2020 pandemic.
Artists sang for our amusement from their million-dollar homes.
Now, belt tightening is the new norm in the Age of Biden. So, too, are violent incidents that are creeping onto film sets.
Tinsel Town can’t escape the Biden touch.
We’re at the start of a don’t-call-it-a-recession recession, and it’s hitting Hollywood … hard. Netflix, the undisputed streaming king, is suddenly pinching pennies. The streamer gave its full-throated support for all content earlier this year, eager for the eyeballs stars like Dave Chappelle bring, even if it leaves Netflix employees triggered along the way.
Netflix brass even canceled woke shows before they got off the ground, fearing they wouldn’t attract enough viewers to make it worth the streamer’s while. Think Meghan Markle’s “Pearl” and Ibram X. Kendi’s “Antiracist Baby,” along with a sizable amount of animated projects.
The belt tightening is even more dramatic at Warner Bros. Discovery. The megacompany’s fiscal woes are legendary, made famous by the company shelving “Batgirl,” a star-studded film (JK Simmons, Michael Keaton) close to being finished, but deemed too woke for its own good.
Layoffs are the new normal behind the scenes at the studio, with current economic woes getting name-checked in the press. As part of the statement read, “Rising interest rates and a weak macro-economic climate has put pressure on media companies to be more disciplined about costs.”
The company’s TV division just shuttered its development programs, another move with dollar signs in mind. Once again, the decisions struck at the heart of Hollywood’s woke mindset. “All three programs have served as stepping stones for underrepresented voices in Hollywood.”
Meanwhile, a recent Bloomberg report spells trouble for those outside the Warner Bros. Discovery bubble: “If You Work in Film and TV, Get Ready for Layoffs,” the piece begins. “Executives at other studios are canceling projects even with stars attached or putting them on the back burner. They’re also regularly asking for 20% reductions in budgets for series, according to talent agents Bloomberg News spoke with. The tighter spending is impacting other ongoing work in Hollywood, like a push to boost diversity on screen.”
The current Oscar season doesn’t seem to be helping matters. An early front-runner, the star-studded “Amsterdam” (Christian Bale, Margot Robbie), may lose its studio nearly $100 million. It seems audiences couldn’t wait to reunite with Tom Cruise via “Top Gun: Maverick,” but are less willing to spend their dwindling cash on vanity projects.
The box office blues hit Hollywood hard in September, no doubt. The industry endured the lowest box office grosses since 1996 (minus the 2020 recession figures).
Over at late night TV, ratings are circling the drain as the new Fox News kid on the block, “Gutfeld!,” laps the competition. TBS pulled the plug on its basement-rated “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” while Comedy Central either accepted Trevor Noah’s resignation from “The Daily Show” or it, too, couldn’t suffer the show’s terrible ratings.
The Great White Way is feeling the pinch as well. Beloved properties like “The Phantom of the Opera” are calling it quits after decades of profitability, with the blame partially attributed to Bidenflation. Other shows set to close due to the economic fallout include “Beetlejuice” and “Dear Evan Hansen.”
There’s another factor to Broadway’s downturn, one that’s being felt nationwide. Crime is running rampant in the city, spurred by Democrat-friendly movements like Defund the Police and soft-on-crime dictates from progressive District Attorneys.
Major stars including Jane Fonda, Lizzo, Natalie Portman, and John Legend rallied to support the Defund movement in 2020 — although they subsequently fell silent when crime rates soared nationwide.
Crime is seeping into Hollywood-adjacent projects across the country. Comedian Craig Robinson had to cancel a stand-up appearance after gunfire erupted in a North Carolina club he was scheduled to appear in.
Actor Frank Grillo of MCU fame mourned the death of his boxing trainer, Azuma Bennett, another senseless casualty in L.A.’s spiking crime wave.
Multiple Hollywood productions in Chicago suffered gunfire incidents in recent months, including the “Justified” revival and NBC’s “Chicago Fire.”
A crew member working for “Law & Order: Organized Crime” died on the New York City set when a gunman shot him three times while he waited for work to begin in his car.
Crime. Chaos. Inflation. Unemployment. Recession. It’s all part of Biden’s America, and it’s exactly what Hollywood demanded just two short years ago.
The industry is paying the price for its poor decision, just like the rest of the country.
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at @HollywoodInToto.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
